Still Held By the Water

Last week, I introduced the first half of my reading of How the Water Holds Me by Detroit poet Tariq Luthun. I am more than happy to say that I remained locked in as a reader all the way through and finished reading the collection. More memories pour out of this book from one poem to the next, and as I continued to read I began to notice the significance of parental figures. In reflection, this collection mentions the word “father” more times than any other collection I’ve read. The second half of this book is also where I felt I learned something about Luthun’s mother, who I found mentioned far less than his father.

“...she raises / her eyes from the dishes, / her hands up from the bath, / and gives / a gentle laugh, / a sigh, we make / du’a, we pray...

I think this realization is very important to the entire collection and the concept of being “held” by water. It begs the question, “What is the water?” I am inclined to wonder if the water Luthun speaks of, in addition to the physical waters between Detroit and Palestine, are his family.

“I fear what becomes / of the family that feasts on pain.”

I highly recommend Luthun’s collection, which is forthcoming this month from Bull City Press and is currently available for pre-order. This has been a fantastic read to keep me company as the state of Michigan remains under a stay-at-home order.

If you are missing the sounds of live poetry, I am hosting a weekly virtual open mic for Citywide Poets on Instagram Live every Saturday at 3:00 PM EDT! Follow @citywidepoets to tune in or participate with a poem. Our Citywide Poets program focuses on teen writers, but we welcome adults to join in to share as we get through this pandemic together. Stay safe.

Citywide Poets Instagram Live Saturday Share Open Mic poster.
 
Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

Carnegie Fund for Authors Open for Applications

To help writers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be highlighting emergency funds available to writers. For more sources of support, read our running list of resources for writers in the time of coronavirus.

The Carnegie Fund for Authors assists published fiction and nonfiction writers who are experiencing “pressing and substantial pecuniary need.” Applications are accepted from “American authors who have published at least one full-length work” of fiction or nonfiction with a mainstream publisher.

The fund typically disburses grants to writers seeking support due to “illness or injury to self, spouse, or dependent child,” but also provides assistance to writers experiencing “some other misfortune” due to an emergency such as fire, flood, or hurricane.

Prospective applicants must first provide their name, address, and e-mail in order to register for an account on the Carnegie Fund for Authors website. After the account has been approved by an administrator, writers may use the online application system or download an application to be submitted by mail. Applications must include documentation of the writer’s emergency situation, such as a letter from a doctor. Additional documentation may be required. Visit the website for complete eligibility requirements and application guidelines.

The Carnegie Fund for Authors grew out of an organization called the Authors Club, a community of literary luminaries founded in New York City in 1882, which kept aside funds for members experiencing financial distress. Over the years, Andrew Carnegie made significant donations to the club, which led the organization to establish a separate fund, the Carnegie Fund of the Author Club. By 1942, the Carnegie Fund for Authors had become its own entity and continued in its mission to serve authors in need.   

Writers Emergency Assistance Fund Open for Applications

To help writers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be highlighting emergency funds available to writers. For more sources of support, read our running list of resources for writers in the time of coronavirus.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) is granting emergency funds to established freelance writers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically those “who cannot work because they are currently ill or caring for someone who is ill.”

Writers who have published at least one nonfiction book with a major publishing house or published five articles in regional or national publications are eligible. There are no residency requirements, and writers do not have to be members of ASJA. Writers who have lost work because publishers and outlets are no longer assigning work, however, are not eligible at this time.

Using only the online application system, submit your publication record and documentation detailing your financial, medical, and household situation. Applications sent by e-mail or post will not be accepted. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

ASJA estimates that most applications will be processed in two to four weeks; a volunteer group of freelance writers reviews the applications.

Headquartered in New York City, the ASJA is the nation’s largest professional organization of independent nonfiction writers. The organization provides information, networking opportunities, seminars, and workshops, among other services, to its members. Since 1982 the ASJA has administered approximately $400,000 through its Writers Emergency Assistance Fund.

Daily Scribe

“September 3: (Lord’s day.) Up; and put on my colored silk suit very fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since but durst not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection,” writes Samuel Pepys in his diary about the Great Plague of 1665 in London, excerpted in Lapham’s Quarterly. This week start writing short, daily journal entries about your observations and feelings about the current coronavirus pandemic. How have your small, everyday routines been affected by the crisis? How have new habits popped up? Record your tangential musings along with feelings of loss, helplessness, anger, humor, or hope as they arise.

Deadline Extended for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing

The deadline for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing has been extended from March 31 to May 1 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This prize is given annually for a debut work of prose written by a first-generation immigrant that speaks to “some combination of identity, the meeting of cultures and communities, immigration and migration, and today’s globalized society.” The winner is awarded $10,000 and publication by Restless Books. Presented in alternating years for fiction and nonfiction works, the 2020 prize will be given to a fiction writer.

Using only the online submission system, submit a CV, cover letter, and novel or collection of short stories of at least 45,000 words by May 1. The manuscript must be written in or translated into English. There is no entry fee. Dinaw Mengestu, Achy Obejas, and Ilan Stavans will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Past fiction winners of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing are Priyanka A. Champaneri and Deepak Unnikrishnan. Established in 2016, the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing is founded on the understanding that “the ethos of the modern world is defined by immigrants.”

José Torres-Tama and His Sci-fi Latino Noir

As we remain at home and do our part to stop the spread of the coronavirus, I wanted to share a short interview I did with poet and performance artist José Torres-Tama who I met a few years ago when we read along with other featured New Orleans poets at a venue off of St. Claude. I remember his chant of “no guacamole for immigrant haters” vividly. Torres-Tama has been touring his solo show Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers across the country for almost ten years. The multimedia and bilingual show, which he describes as a “sci-fi Latino noir,” is updated regularly to reflect current events and is based on interviews Torres-Tama conducts with undocumented immigrants who share their courageous stories. The Readings & Workshops program cosponsored a powerful performance of the show this past September at the Alvar Branch of the New Orleans Public Library. I was able to speak with him about his work, his life in New Orleans, and the importance of giving voice to the immigrant experience.

How has Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers evolved over the years?
Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers premiered in 2010 at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans. In August 2019, we restaged the show for sold-out houses back at the Ashé to kick off a national tour. The show is about the hypocrisy of a country that exploits immigrant labor while criminalizing them. My comic battle cry is, “No guacamole for immigrant haters!” My 2020 tour opened in Mexico City and celebrated Glossolalia, a bilingual poetry book edited by iconic poet Guillermo Gómez-Peña that includes poems from Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers.

Why does New Orleans feel like home to you?
I’m an Ecuadorian immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen, and immigrant rights is the thematic platform for my poems. New Orleans is the northernmost point of the Caribbean with an often forgotten Latin legacy, and since the 1980s, I proudly call these swamplands home because I’ve cultivated my voice as a poet and performance artist here.

What do you feel is your contribution to the New Orleans literary scene?
I’m one of few Latin American poets here speaking to the immigrant experience. I believe my work is vital to a poetry scene that’s often stuck in a white and black binary quagmire. We need more Latinx voices to claim our rightful place in a city whose post-Katrina resurrection owes much to Latin American immigrant reconstruction workers who gave their blood, labor, and love to our rebirth.

Who are some local poets on your radar that we should look out for?
Two poets to watch in New Orleans are Linett Luna Tovar, a fierce Mexican wordsmith, and José Fermin Ceballos, an Afro-Dominican singer and poet.

Kelly Harris is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in New Orleans. Contact her at NOLA@pw.org or on Twitter, @NOLApworg.

Street View

In “How to See the World When You’re Stuck at Home,” a New York Times essay about using Google Street View to explore the world, Reif Larsen writes: “I often turn to it as a research tool when I’m writing a novel but more often than not, I simply use it to practice being a curious human. What an unbelievable resource! An endless fountain for little details.” Think of a place—a region, country, specific city, or remote locale that you find evocative—and take a voyage using Street View on Google Maps, which collects panoramic images from Google Street View car cameras and individual contributors. Explore the architecture, local flora and fauna, and any people who were caught on camera. Write a short story that responds to the images you see, and let your imagination fill in other sensory details and observations.

Party Time: Zine Fest Houston

Now that we are being asked to stay at home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus and adjusting to this new terrain, most literary events have been canceled or postponed. Knowing this, I thought maybe I shouldn’t be writing about literary festivals and conferences, but I wanted to add a little hope for the future and highlight some great events we can look forward to that take place in Houston. It has also been wonderful to see some events and conferences, like TeenBookCon, adjusting to the current state of things and finding ways to have virtual events via social media platforms. To wrap up this series of posts, I want to tell you all about Zine Fest Houston.

Zine Fest Houston has been around since 1993, first as a small gathering in a local park in Houston where zine creators came together to share their latest issues. Since then, they have grown each year but the annual festival has always been about DIY creations. This is a space for brilliant creators to showcase and share self-published works or small print runs of literary works. Everything presented, shared, and worked on is unique and unconventional and that is the main draw to the festival. According to their website, the event promotes “zines, mini-comics, and other forms of small press, alternative, underground, DIY media and art.” The registration is free and the event is for all ages. There are tables and tables of artists and zines, panels and talks, and even zine-making workshops.

I actually sighed in relief after thinking this would be another festival that had to be canceled and seeing that, as of their announcement on Twitter in early March, the event scheduled for November 7 is still a go! This year’s theme celebrates all things transit-related and the ways transportation has influenced Houston’s culture.

Zine Fest Houston has also just organized a “Cyber Mall: Texas Zinesters & Comic Creators Directory” as a community Google sheet to support those who have lost income and opportunities to sell at festivals and events. Keep up with their news on Twitter, @ZineFestHouston.

Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.

Fight Song

3.31.20

“I return to some books that have helped ground me and given me this long-seeing perspective, and from their words I made some poems,” Alli Warren writes at Literary Hub, where she created short poems from books that help her feel less alone, including W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America, Bernadette Mayer’s Utopia, and Emanuele Coccia’s The Life of Plants. “These are not my words, they are the words of their authors—I just translated them into poems, so that we can sing them and remember (poetry is a technology of memory), building up community memory, humming these fight songs.” Think of a book that you turn to for solace or wisdom in difficult times, and select lines from the book to turn into a fight song poem of your own to sing.

How the Water Holds Me

It has been about a week since Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer announced a stay-at-home order to all residents as a measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In these sheltered times, I am reflecting on the moment and finding solace in books of poetry. Although just a few poems in, I am excited to say a few words about How the Water Holds Me by Palestinian American poet and Detroit local Tariq Luthun, which is forthcoming from Bull City Press in April.

In the introductory poems, we learn about Luthun’s background and family with subtle hints about the significance of place. As a reader, I found my curiosity building line by line as I gained snapshots of Tariq’s memories while sharing desires such as:

“I haven’t forgotten that / everyone needs a place on this planet. / And I, / I prefer to live where I can leave / the doors unlocked...”

Midway through this collection, I am beginning to better understand the title of the book as the poems “dive in” (pun intended) to how water plays a role in Luthun’s life and family. His words invite me to consider the distance over water between Detroit and Palestine. Luthun writes:

“Earth, / itself, I realize, is just a body / of waters.”

Luthun’s poems pull readers’ minds in and ask us to consider what displacement, home, ancestry, and identity mean to each of us. I am thinking about how I can connect more with my own family and history. I look forward to my journey through the rest of these poems, and highly recommend reading this collection.

Tariq Luthun, author of How the Water Holds Me (Bull City Press, 2020).
 
Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

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